Our Version of Events
by sdbubbles
Summary: The thoughts of the team and other characters at different stages of their lives, during the series and maybe pre-series too. Sort of a wee challenge I set myself to stop me going crazy till I find out if I'm getting into the college course I want to get in. Nearly all, if not all, chracters included at some point.


**A/N: I have set myself a challenge in my boredom: to write a NCIS fic for every song on the album "Our Version of Events" by Emeli Sande. I do not know how well I will do. Most, if not all characters will eventually be incorporated, and each little fic is unrelated. So a collection of little song-fics, really.**

**As to how the boredom itself came about - I quit school, applied for a Vehicle Mechanics course at Dundee College and am waiting for my interview appointment. So I'm sitting on my hands for now.**

**This one is set to the first track, "Heaven" and is set as Ziva is being rescued in Somalia.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

_Will you recognise me  
In the flashing light?  
I try to keep my heart beat  
But I can't get it right_

After all of this, after the bright light of the baking Somalian sun is replaced by the blue flashing lights of the NCIS Major Case Response Team's truck – the one Tony is clearly incapable of driving safely in – will they remember who she used to be. Will they remember the Ziva David who put her all into trying to make her placement on their team, in their country, work for everyone involved? The Ziva David she was before Michael Rivkin came along and changed her outlook, as Eli had wanted him to?

She wonders, can they see her through what she has become? She has become even more guarded, in an effort to keep everyone at arms length to keep herself safe from the hell her father has put her through. She wonders, will the familiarity of the flashing blue lights and the squad room and the evidence garage remind them she is still Ziva David? She hopes they can still recognise her.

She can't tell if her heart is still beating properly as they pull her out of Saleem's stronghold and into the scorching, white light of the Sahara Desert. It _is_ beating, but it's hard, fast and irregular. It's like it's trying too hard to help her survive as who she used to be. It doesn't want to change it's owner, and it's owner doesn't want to be changed. But she knows that, ultimately, a part of her engrained by her father will have be killed off, to be replaced by a part created for her by one Leroy Jethro Gibbs. In fact, she knows every part of her will either grow or shrink in reaction to this ordeal. How else can her heart keep beating as it should?

_Will you recognise me  
When I'm lying on my back?  
Something's gone inside me  
And I can't get it back_

Will they remember the ruthless Ziva David when the new one is flat and damaged in a few weeks time, when all of this failed mission, and Malachi, catch up with her, as she knows it must? Eli is not one to let things settle without a consequence.

Someone - her, Malachi, Vance, Gibbs, Tony – someone will be held responsible by the man who cannot accept that her welfare, the whole mission is and was his own responsibility. And for someone to be nailed to the post, Ziva must recount what actually happened on-board the _Damocles_. And she _will_ be on her back, struggling for air and someone to help her; recounting the worst time of her life could never be easy.

There is a part of her, somewhere, as she lets Tony help her into a truck, that has just disappeared. It has simply gone. She can almost feel the absence of that ruthlessness, that hardness unwavering loyalty to her father and ability to kill without question. It's like it has simply evaporated. And it will never come back. At that moment, she doesn't want it back. Isn't that partially what put her in this situation? Her unquestioned allegiance to her father and Mossad? Never questioning his motives or his means?

_Oh heaven, oh heaven_  
_I wake with good intentions_  
_But the day it always lasts too long_  
_Then I'm gone_  
_Oh heaven, oh heaven_  
_I wake with good intentions_  
_But the day it always lasts too long_

She really does want to do the right thing when she returns to Washington. She wants to do what's best for herself, and her family. Not the one she knows must be left behind, or what remains of it, anyway. Her intentions are now pure. She has nothing left to lose, so what is there to risk? Her only wish, her only goal, is to be healthy again after her ordeal, and to surround herself with a family who actually care about her.

The only thing wrong with her plans is that she doesn't know if she can hang on that long. She's spent three months in the desert being tortured. Weeks before that struggling with her loyalties, only to find she'd been lied to. And now she must spend a long time regaining the trust she lost. It won't be immediate. She knows her betrayals have left scars, particularly with Gibbs and Tony. She just wonders, can she struggle through those long days and eventually win back their trust, and the relationships that come with it? Because it feels like a very long, rough battle.

_Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone_

And, when she does have her family back, the old part of her, the one whose loyalty could always be questioned, will vanish. She feels like she herself, her whole being, will be demolished and rebuilt with only the foundations to work on.

_Will you recognise me__  
__When I'm stealing from the poor?__  
__You're not going to like me,__  
__I'm nothing like before_

Briefly, she wonders if her father, her birth father, will recognise her in a few years time. She knows, even now as her journey is only beginning, she must take support out of those around her who already are troubled by their pasts and presents. It's something she's never done before. She has never deliberately taken comfort and support and strength out of people, particularly when they do not have much left to spare. She realises that she must do it; it's the only way to stay alive.

He's not going to like her, she's sure of it. He will disagree with her relying on her friends. He always taught her to stand on her own, no crouches, no leaning posts. She can't live like that now. Her learned independence is a part of her downfall. Even at the last moment, while the three Americans got on that plane, Gibbs gave her an opportunity to go back with them, and rely on him. It was in his eyes when he gave her his final goodbye. And she blocked it out. She can't be like that. She can't put a sky-high wall of sheet metal around her. Look where it might get her.

_Will you recognise me__  
__When I lose another friend?__  
__Will you learn to leave me__  
__Or give me one more try again?__  
_

Another worry is that she might never get some of her friends back, because she isn't the old Ziva David anymore; or rather, because they can't see she isn't the same person who chose Mossad over them. She knows Abby might be hard work. Abby suffers with her family, and she backs them up when they have been done wrong. And what happened was massive to Abby. She would hate to lose Abby's friendship.

Can they eventually learn to leave her alone when she screws it up? She thinks they might give up in the end, deeming that she is not worth what she has and will have to put them through to end all of this once and for all. When the time comes, when Gibbs finds out exactly who was killed by who, and how the _Damocles_ sank, will he wash his hands of her for good. She fears he will. She wouldn't blame him if he did.

But what if, just maybe, he kept at it? What if he and the rest of the team stood with her, and gave their relationships and trust with her one more go? She knows she will not take that lightly, and she will do everything she can to prove to them she still is loyal to them, and that she knows they love her more than Eli does, and that she is worth all the hurt. Maybe she could convince them she was worth one more shot.

_Oh heaven, oh heaven__  
__I wake with good intentions__  
__But the day it always lasts too long__  
__Then I'm gone__  
__Oh heaven, oh heaven__  
__I wake with good intentions__  
__But the day it always lasts too long_

It strikes her like lightning that she has another fight one hands: the fight to let herself trust _them_. After being deceived and abandoned, can she put her trust in them all again? It's going to be a long fight. Maybe too long. She knows she will superficially trust them, but with her heart, perhaps not.

She does want to be part of their entourage, their dysfunctionally perfect unit. Her intentions are only to be loved and to be valued, but it worried her how many people she has hurt, and how many she may hurt along the way to her goal. It will make it so much more difficult, and she doesn't know that she can do that to them.

_Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone_

_Oh heaven, oh heaven__  
__I wake with good intentions_

But that most selfish part of her has all but disappeared. The cycle of her father's cruel hold on her and her rather selfish desire to be his little girl has gone. She realises now she doesn't need him. She knows she has to stick to her aim, her pure, fair aim, of having people to love her. She is being burned by the sun, but it is nothing compared to her desire to have a solid foundation of people surrounding her.

_You say that you're away__  
__I try but always break__  
__'Cause the day always lasts too long_

She hears Tony say they are ready to leave now, and they are ready to leave this place behind them. He says that they are away to board the plane home. She tries to hold herself back from gripping Tony's hand, from letting her guard slip. But she can't do it. She tries her best, but she ends up grasping onto his hand for dear life. Her willpower has broken, and maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

This is going to be the longest part of her life. Longer than when she lost Tali, Ari and Jenny, because this is her own personal fight to struggle through.

_Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone__  
__Then I'm gone_

The dust cloud is left behind as the truck speeds off to meet the plane home, and she knows, she just knows, she really is going _home_ this time.

And they're gone.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!**

**Please leave a review and give me your opinion!**

**Sarah x**


End file.
